An open space often lacks a well-structured walking network defined by sidewalks, roads or other paths. Examples of such open space may include an indoor space, town square, park, parking lot, mountain, and a tract of water. Such open space may be modeled by a graph-based infrastructure, but without concrete paths defined therein.
A user, such as a pedestrian, hiker, biker, swimmer, or driver of a vehicle, often needs directions or suggestions of a path when maneuvering in the open space. Such path is an unobstructed path that obviates obstacles in the open space. An obstacle may be an object that stands in the way of a user, or prevents the user from maneuvering forward. Sometimes, a user needs to travel from a well-structured walking network to an open space in a seamless fashion, such that the user may receive continuous direction or path finding support when maneuvering from the walking network to the open space.
However, existing path finding processes fail to meet the user's needs for various reasons. For instance, some processes depend on a well-structured walking network in order to compute directions or determine a walking path. Some other processes are not compatible with the graph-based infrastructure. Other processes provide a user with a jagged, unnatural or ugly path that the user is unlikely to remember or unlikely to undertake under normal circumstances.